JOCK Goes Sci-fi, Writing/Drawing SAVAGE WOLVERINE Arc

By Chris Arrant, Newsarama Contributor June 7, 2013 12:00pm ET

Savage Wolverine #9 Cover

Credit: Marvel Comics

It looks like Jock has a new word in his vocabulary:

SNIKT.

The story broke earlier today over at USA Today that popular The Losers, Green Arrow, and more artist Jock would be stepping in to write and draw an arc on Marvel’s Savage Wolverine series. The series, which launched last year, has been set-up as a place where high caliber artists can stretch their legs – and their drawing hands – with Marvel’s most popular X-Man and do it without being weighed down by continuities, mandates or crossovers.

The three-issue arc, which begins with September’s Savage Wolverine #9, is said to showcase the adamantium-clawed mutant in the “far-flung future” on an alien planet where he’s in a race to catch up with centuries of violent and dangerous evolution amongst the creatures who inhabit the world. According to Jock, the story is focused on what happens if the mutant who’s gifted with a rapid healing ability and a long life span can outlast the sands of time.

"Logan has the power of regeneration as we know, but he'd only ever be able to regenerate his own cells,” explains Jock. "So what if thousands, maybe even millions of years in the future, the world around him has continued to evolve, and he's left literally, a Neanderthal man?”

This arc would mark Jock’s first major interiors work for Marvel – and his first major work as a writer as well.. Previously Jock has contributed covers to numerous series for Marvel and even did a short Mystique story with Jason Aaron in 2009’s Dark X-Men: The Beginning#3, but this upcoming run on Savage Wolverine would be his first major contribution to the Marvel mythos. But as it turns out, the artist has an strong affinity for Marvel’s signature anti-hero.

"[Wolverine’s] just totally over the top," Jock is quoted as saying in the USA Today interview "You can draw him as gnarly and violent and extreme as you want, but it's never enough! I love characters that can handle extremes, and he's definitely an extreme."

This won’t be the Scottish artist’s first dalliance with the mutant hero who describes himself as “the best there is as what he does;” Jock has illustrated covers for both the Wolverine MAX series and Marvel Universe vs. Wolverine. So if there’s an ideal place for an established artist to try his hand at writing to complement his illustration, this arc on Savage Wolverine looks to be it.

"It's a perfect set up,” Jock says of the upcoming run,” being able to tell an out of continuity tale and have carte blanche to play around with things with no fear of repercussions.”